If it be true that you design to attack me again, I declare to you that I have still health enough to find you, wherever you are, and to take the most signal vengeance upon you. Thank the respect and obedience which have hitherto restrained my arm, and saved you from the worst adventure you have ever had.Then, writes Wilhelmina, as to his bride, I begged him to tell me candidly if the portrait the queen and my sister had been making of her were the true one.
ONE:I have seen it, was the reply; but it is only a scratch, which your majesty will soon heal again.The companions of the king were well-bred men, of engaging manners, commanding intelligence, and accustomed to authority. The entertainment was superb, with an abundance of the richest wines. The conversation took a wide range, and was interesting and exciting to a high degree. The French officers were quite bewildered by the scene. The count was perfect master of the French language, was very brilliant in his sallies, and seemed perfectly familiar with all military affairs. He was treated with remarkable deference by his companions, some of whom were far his superiors in years.
TWO:After dinner, writes Voltaire, the king retired alone into his cabinet, and made verses till five or six oclock. A concert commenced at seven, in which the king performed on the flute as well as the best musician. The pieces of music executed were also often of the kings composition. On the days of public ceremonies he exhibited great magnificence. It was a fine spectacle to see him at table, surrounded by twenty princes of the empire, served on the most beautiful gold plate in Europe, and attended by thirty handsome pages, and as many young heyducs, superbly dressed, and carrying great dishes of massive gold. After these banquets the court attended the opera in the great theatre, three hundred feet long. The most admirable singers and the best dancers were at this time in the pay of the King of Prussia.Loss of time was one of the losses Frederick could least stand. In visits, even from his brothers and sisters, which were always by his own express invitation, he would say some morning (call it Tuesday morning), You are going on Wednesday, I am sorry to hear (what you never heard before). Alas! your majesty, we must. Well, I am sorry; but I will lay no constraint on you. Pleasant moments can not last forever. This trait is in the anecdote-books; but its authenticity does not rest on that uncertain basis. Singularly enough, it comes to me individually, by two clear stages, from Fredericks sister, the Duchess of Brunswick, who, if any body, would know it well.
THREE:The marquis looked for a moment upon the singular spectacle with astonishment. Then raising his hands, he exclaimed,498 He is as potent and as malignant as the devil. He is also as unhappy, not knowing friendship.
TWO:Frederick did what he could to divert the attention of the court at Reinsberg by multiplying gayeties of every kind. There was feasting, and music, and dancing, and theatric exhibitions, often continuing until four oclock in the morning. In the mean time couriers were coming and going. Troops were moving. Provisions and the materiel of war were accumulating. Anxious embassadors watched every movement of the kings hand, weighed every word which escaped his lips, and tried every adroit measure to elicit from him his secret. The Danish minister, Pr?torius, wrote to his court from Berlin:His Prussian majesty rides much about, often at a rapid rate, with a pleasant business aspecthumane, though imperative; handsome to look upon, though with a face perceptibly reddish. His age, now thirty-eight gone; a set appearance, as if already got into his forties; complexion florid; figure muscular, almost tending to be plump.
TWO: Frederick.For the most part, one of his own grenadiers was the model from which he copied. And when the portrait had more color in it than the original, he was in the habit of coloring the cheeks of the soldier to correspond with the picture. Enchanted with the fruits of his genius, he showed them to his courtiers, and asked their opinion concerning them. As he would have been very angry with any one who had criticised them, he was quite sure of being gratified with admiration.
TWO:With that vigilant eye upon him, Frederick was compelled to some vigor of action. On the night of October 17th he commenced the bombardment. The noise was terrific. It could not294 be prevented but that the shot and shell should do some harm. Some buildings were burned; several lives were lost. M. Valori, who knew that the result could not be doubtful, was induced to go to Breslau and await the surrender. After the garrison had made apparently a gallant resistance, and Frederick had achieved apparent prodigies of valor, the city was surrendered on the 31st of October. Most of the garrison immediately enlisted in the Prussian service.Inarticulate notions, fancies, transient aspirations, he might have, in the background of his mind. One day, sitting for a while out of doors, gazing into the sun, he was heard to murmur, Perhaps I shall be nearer thee soon; and, indeed, nobody knows what his thoughts were in these final months. There is traceable only a complete superiority to fear and hope; in parts, too, are half glimpses of a great motionless interior lake of sorrow, sadder than any tears or complainings, which are altogether wanting to it.
However, madam, my sentence has failed to calm the minds. The schism continues, and the number of damnatory theologians prevail over the others.180Sophie Dorothee dispatched a courier with these documents, to go with the utmost speed to England. It was a long journey in those days, and the winds were often contrary. A fortnight passed. Three weeks were gone. Still there was no answer. On the 25th of January, 1730a day, writes Wilhelmina, which I shall never forgetFinckenstein, Borck, and Grumkow again called upon the queen, with the following message from the king:
荣誉榜
THREE: My Cousin,Knowing all the assaults made by you upon my indisputable rights over my free barony of Herstal, and how the seditious ringleaders there, for several years past, have been countenanced by you in their detestable acts of disobedience against me, I have commanded my privy counselor, Rambonet, to repair to your presence, and in my name to require from you, within two days, a distinct and categorical answer to this question:
THREE:You will now recall to mind what passed a year and a day agohow scandalously you behaved, and what a godless enterprise you undertook. As I have had you about me from the beginning, and must know you well, I did all in the world that was in my power, by kindness and by harshness, to make an honorable man of you. As I rather suspected your evil purposes, I treated you in the harshest and sharpest way in the Saxon camp, in hopes you would consider yourself, and take another line of conduct; would confess your faults to me, and beg forgiveness. But all in vain. You grew ever more stiff-necked. You thought to carry it through with your headstrong humor. But hark ye, my lad! if thou wert sixty or seventy instead of eighteen, thou couldst not cross my resolutions. And as up to this date I have managed to sustain myself against any comer, there will be methods found to bring thee to reason too.
